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I agree with what was said above, it's not that they are useless so much as that after a while the investment has diminishing returns. This actually works more in favor of the game for most classes since it allows you to invest around more with the various classes since you have to worry less about investing heavily in every skill you want in order to not suck at it and can still be quite good. Another plus is that it allows every member of the party to be pretty skilled at something.
That being said this does screw classes that are really skill focused without much else (rogue I'm looking at you). With some skills the best help is story related. It makes pure fluff investments like profession (weaving) more appealing when there is 6 months to a year of time passing in game where said player can work and build their own textiles business which might get them into contact with that NPC that leads to the next adventure.
My input on this: It's because with the large amount of spells available that take the place of or grant ludicrous bonuses to so many skills that actually having the skill makes little to no difference. Having those skills when you need them though is all well and good because as we all know games don't happen in a vacuum where every spellcaster has every spell prepared or known all the time.
I more or less disagree. The problem is not only that the spell exist but that it can be casted a lot of times, suing normal spell slots or scrolls and wands.
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Having those skills when you need them though is all well and good because as we all know games don't happen in a vacuum where every spellcaster has every spell prepared or known all the time.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that scrolls are commonplace and cheap.
A scroll of spider climb, for example, costs 150 gp, lasts for half an hour, and makes the Climb skill largely irrelevant. It also sits comfortably on the equipment list until needed. A scroll of animal aspect does the same thing for Swim, albeit only for three minutes. Knock does a great job of substituting for many Disable Device checks. Grease is only 1st level (25 gp) and handles Escape Artist.
So the problem is that it's not unreasonable or uncommon for a caster to have those spells available, even if not prepared.
Having those skills when you need them though is all well and good because as we all know games don't happen in a vacuum where every spellcaster has every spell prepared or known all the time.The problem with that line of reasoning is that scrolls are commonplace and cheap.
A scroll of spider climb, for example, costs 150 gp, lasts for half an hour, and makes the Climb skill largely irrelevant. It also sits comfortably on the equipment list until needed. A scroll of animal aspect does the same thing for Swim, albeit only for three minutes. Knock does a great job of substituting for many Disable Device checks. Grease is only 1st level (25 gp) and handles Escape Artist.
So the problem is that it's not unreasonable or uncommon for a caster to have those spells available, even if not prepared.
In my experience, there's a huge amount of table variation between theoretical caster flexibility and how much flexibility casters actually display. Many spellcasters simply don't have a big pile of scrolls lying around in order to flawlessly handle the wide array of situations that it would let them handle. I don't think that character options should necessarily be balanced around characters being played significantly below potential, but it definitely explains differences in people's real-world evaluation of the value of skills.
Well, that's one of the points under seemingly endless discussion. What's the use of the Climb skill when you can fly or levitate? What's the good of healing when you have cure spells galore?Dont get me wrong i like having a good wizard to have my back, but i feel the designers and GM's should take it upon them selves to make skills more useful,Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
Heal can be both used to determine the nature of a wound ("This man was killed by a beast that has a jaw about 3 feet long" 'I roll a knowledge[nature] check for local animals; you guys handle religion and planes') or for use in torture ("Who needs intimidate when you have no scruples, but plenty of scalpels?").
Anyway, while a lot of people who go for climb and swim as proof that skills are under powered.... I mean, has anyone ever bothered maxing those skills, even for a character concept? Most people just dump a couple of points to be trained in it, and then go for knowledge skills or something. So yes, while those two are useless after a while, but there are still plenty of other skills that are invaluable.
Diplomacy is always useful, for example. Sure, a charm spell could get around the same problem, but that costs a resource, and there are spells in place that detect such things. If you are in the middle of political intrigue dealing with lots of power and suspicion.... well, who wouldn't use those kinds of spells every so often? And then you have to explain to the king why you charmed his daughter (it was to get the key to the secret passage to the macguffin, you sickos, although the king and his ax-man might not think that). But a diplomacy check is something you just toss out and you are done, with none the wiser (unless it is the evil chancellor's secret spy, who would report your questions to him, but hey, sense motive is again, a thing).
And sense motive? It can be used to detect if one of the party members has been enchanted. It is the skill you use to justify using those detection spells without being a metagamer.
In the end, skills are tools to help insure that players and the GM can use the experience of the characters without it becoming a petty argument about how "as an experienced warrior, I would always expect enemies to attack, so no, you can't do a surprise attack." If your group has experienced roleplayers that can handle the situation without those skills....well, more power to you. But I've seen too many threads complaining about "chaotic neutral" characters to think that rules such as these do not provide useful guidelines.
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Well, that's one of the points under seemingly endless discussion. What's the use of the Climb skill when you can fly or levitate? What's the good of healing when you have cure spells galore?Dont get me wrong i like having a good wizard to have my back, but i feel the designers and GM's should take it upon them selves to make skills more useful,Well, I'm quite fond of having powerful magic. But there are a number of systems that limit it more. As an example, in warhammer FR, you can cast as much as you want, but at the chance of going insane. Ze chaos, she is not kind.
Heal can be both used to determine the nature of a wound ("This man was killed by a beast that has a jaw about 3 feet long" 'I roll a knowledge[nature] check for local animals; you guys handle religion and planes') or for use in torture ("Who needs intimidate when you have no scruples, but plenty of scalpels?").
Anyway, while a lot of people who go for climb and swim as proof that skills are under powered.... I mean, has anyone ever bothered maxing those skills, even for a character concept? Most people just dump a couple of points to be trained in it, and then go for knowledge skills or something. So yes, while those two are useless after a while, but there are still plenty of other skills that are invaluable.
Diplomacy is always useful, for example. Sure, a charm spell could get around the same problem, but that costs a resource, and there are spells in place that detect such things. If you are in the middle of political intrigue dealing with lots of power and suspicion.... well, who wouldn't use those kinds of spells every so often? And then you have to explain to the king why you charmed his daughter (it was to get the key to the secret passage to the macguffin, you sickos, although the king and his ax-man might not think that). But a diplomacy check is something you just toss out and you are...
Exactly on the charm thing. If you live in a world where charm spells are not only real but common you have to assume that most royalty would have many countermeasures. Hell sense motive is a cheap investment and the charm detect DC is static so kings would probably have at least a few in their court rooms and likely detection measures beyond that.
I started a thread about it a few days back.
Can you link me there? I meant to post and/or email you a bunch of stuff over the weekend, but a stomach bug of doom got the better of me (and forced me to cancel my 1st home game in like 5 months, dagnabbit).
Climb is an example of a skill that becomes less relevant as levels go up. Having the party clamber of a cliff takes less time if you just cast fly on a few people and the others hang on. Otherwise, you have to deal with the plate mailed fighter trying to haul his low climb skill self up and then deal with slips and falls
Exactly on the charm thing. If you live in a world where charm spells are not only real but common you have to assume that most royalty would have many countermeasures. Hell sense motive is a cheap investment and the charm detect DC is static so kings would probably have at least a few in their court rooms and likely detection measures beyond that.
Common? Heck, any bloody twit with a guitar might be able to warp your mind. It doesn't exactly take a full magical college degree to pull off. At best, you learn it as a required class in magical highschool (not the religious private ones though; I also think the magus is from a technical school that doesn't cover it too). Enchantment spells should be a much larger factor in most games. I mean, even if you don't have spell casting, these things are level 1 spells, so they are relatively cheap spells to have on wands (at least for the whole 'political intrigue' level of expenses)
Sure Charm is detectable which is why you use Suggestion. Carefully used it is far more insidious.
Unfortunately, detect charm also detects compulsion spells, such as suggestion. So that is a level 1 spell to notice your level 3 (2 for bards, but still). It is still something that you could cheaply pay apprentice wizards to pass by once or twice every day at court.
I feel that spell casters have become far too over powered personally. Their should be far more disadvantages to spell casters to compensate for the fact that they have a spell that can compensate for everything.
Instead of that, the general power level and reach of spells should be restrained. In other words, spells shouldn't be able to do everything.
My take on the actual topic of the thread.
Skills are pretty useful and fun, but not that strong compared to mid to high level spellcasting.
I find that skills are understimated by people who wants to remark umalances in the PF. And I find that skills are overstimated by people that have not seeing all the crazyness of the game.
This is a rogue thread!
Every other class with lots of skill points has spells! The original post is about how cool and useful his rogue is.
Why is it not PC to ask for that build?
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That's not making it more powerful. That's taking something powerful that magic does and distributing it among the plebes who lack caster levels.
Incidentally, in my home games caster level has zero to do with magic item crafting. It's purely skill based. I don't give a rat's ass how powerful your archmage is, if he isn't a good enough smith he can't make a magic weapon or armor.
I kind of like that idea. Awesome magical swords should be made by awesome smiths.
My input on this: It's because with the large amount of spells available that take the place of or grant ludicrous bonuses to so many skills that actually having the skill makes little to no difference. Having those skills when you need them though is all well and good because as we all know games don't happen in a vacuum where every spellcaster has every spell prepared or known all the time.I more or less disagree. The problem is not only that the spell exist but that it can be casted a lot of times, suing normal spell slots or scrolls and wands.
Party is summoned to an urgent meeting with the local lord! "Hey could we stop in the anti chamber for a minute or two and you ignore us so that we can cast a few spells prior to meeting the lord."
"Uh ...You mean like glibness and detect lie and detect alignment?"
"Yes."
"Uh ...No."
"Hey since it is rude/illegal/not allowed to cast spells in: the presence of people/urban areas/to affect nobility/in temples/ pretty much anywhere that is not the wilderness" should we have some skills?"
"Nah, skills are useless after 6th level or so because magic can do everything."
Climb, swim, disguise, get replaced very early by spells , a hat of disguise, or, well, a knotted rope. Acrobatics fades out as cmd rises faster than the skill.
"My amulet of detect magic tells me you just attempted to secretly cast a spell in my presence! ". A month in the tower jail should help you remember the law in this kingdom. "
Guards, priests and wizards surround the party hoping they decide to resist.
Climb, swim, disguise, get replaced very early by spells , a hat of disguise, or, well, a knotted rope. Acrobatics fades out as cmd rises faster than the skill.
Hey if your wizard wants to waste magic doing thing s a fighter or rogue does for free rather than being awesome and binding reality to his will...more power to you.
In fact I feel a new thread coming on "skills are overpowered and need to be nerfed because they make magic useless!"
Disguise is effectively unlimited alter self!
Sense Motive unlimited discern lies or zone of truth.
Acrobatics unlimited jump
Climb unlimited spider climb
Bluff unlimited undetectable alignment
Perception unlimited detect traps
Escape artist unlimited freedom of movement
Linguistics unlimited comprehend languages
Stealth unlimited invisibility and silence
Survival unlimited create food and water
Swim unlimited water walking
And did I mention these skills can be used at/will effectively equalling infinite spell slots per day!!!
In fact I feel a new thread coming on "skills are overpowered and need to be nerfed because they make magic useless!"
Disguise is effectively unlimited alter self!
Sense Motive unlimited discern lies or zone of truth.
Acrobatics unlimited jump
Climb unlimited spider climb
Bluff unlimited undetectable alignment
Perception unlimited detect traps
Escape artist unlimited freedom of movement
Linguistics unlimited comprehend languages
Stealth unlimited invisibility and silence
Survival unlimited create food and water
Swim unlimited water walking
And did I mention these skills can be used at/will effectively equalling infinite spell slots per day!!!
Except for when they are not...
Hey! I'm the one utilizing sarcasm here!
Climb, swim, disguise, get replaced very early by spells , a hat of disguise, or, well, a knotted rope. Acrobatics fades out as cmd rises faster than the skill.Hey if your wizard wants to waste magic doing thing s a fighter or rogue does for free rather than being awesome and binding reality to his will...more power to you.Waste magic? You mean by casting one level 4 spell that lasts longer than anyone can adventure at a stretch and is a cornerstone of typical wizardly defensive tactics?
Anyone can climb a knotted rope. Anyone can cross a non-flooding river with a guide rope. Most popular improved familiars fly and can drive a peg and tie a rope to it if the wizard doesn't like Overland Flight.
Yes...and none of your adventures last more than 7 hours?? You have a nice Gm. But you made my point. Anyone with the right skill can cross a river. Once you use that 4th level spell on overland flight(a good and useful spell I admit) you can't use that spell slot for anything else. Why waste a spell unnecessarily on mundane things.
Sure your wiz could cast invis and silence knock and arcane lock jump and spider climb then at the end of he day he can realize he just wasted half of his spells on things skills let other classes do for free.
Obviously I'm stretching things a bit but skills have their place in the game even if there are other ways of achieving the same things.
Climb, swim, disguise, get replaced very early by spells , a hat of disguise, or, well, a knotted rope. Acrobatics fades out as cmd rises faster than the skill.Hey if your wizard wants to waste magic doing thing s a fighter or rogue does for free rather than being awesome and binding reality to his will...more power to you.
Its not an either or thing. You snag a scoll, you put it in your bag and you're good to go.
The alter self roflcopters the disguise skill. Its a +10 or +20 compared to the +8 of the skill. (and possibly negating the species factors on top of that)
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Climb, swim, disguise, get replaced very early by spells , a hat of disguise, or, well, a knotted rope. Acrobatics fades out as cmd rises faster than the skill.
To elaborate on this and answer the OPs question about saying that people assert that skills are useless. Skills aren't useless, their value is simply tied entirely to what they are able to accomplish in a game setting. Beyond there being spells that can duplicate the effects of certain skills entirely, there is a deeper problem when it comes to the relative value of skills compared to other sources of power. Skills are often time consuming, require large investments of skill points to be effective, forcing the character to focus on raising their proficiency to the detriment of other skills, and rarely allow the player to achieve extraordinary effects.
A comparison:
A Level 10 Char (26 Dex), vs a Level 3 Caster (14 Dex). Stealth Competition.
Char: +8 Dex + 10 ranks +3 for class skill: +21 on the Stealth Check
Caster: +20 Invisibility + 2 Dex: +22 on the Stealth Check
Even if we assume that the caster is moving, a Level 3 caster is more effective at stealth with a single spell and no skill ranks than the Dex-focused level 10 character who isn't taking feats or racial traits to further boost the skill. Now, the Level 10 character can use stealth checks for longer, but they can only do so in an area with concealment. The caster creates their own concealment and can run around all they want, as they generate their own concealment.
I will admit that spells actually have a surprisingly limited use in very high level games. Once spells like True Seeing and Mind Blank enter the field, it is much better to rely on a very high stealth check, disguise check, bluff check, or non-magical source of power than something like invisibility or disguise self.
That said: "Magic makes your magic less usefull" isn't an argument I really like in favor of skills. It's just creating world where only characters with magic can interact with it because things like skills don't usually dispel spells. Spells dispel spells.
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Its not an either or thing. You snag a scoll, you put it in your bag and you're good to go.
Sounds to me that the problem is less the spells obsoleting skills than the easily obtained scrolls and wands. When you had to be 7th level and go on a quest to get the necessary and wacky ingredients to scribe a scroll, you were a lot more judicious what you put on that scroll.